Hotels packed with storm evacuees

August 29, 2005

Albany - We spoke to people from as far away as New Orleans who chose to evacuate from Katrina. Brad Asbury is from Gautier, Mississippi. He says the winds are now reaching 118 miles an hour near his home. He says although he's stayed through weaker hurricanes he didn't want to risk his life or the lives of his family with Katrina.

Brad says, "This time I took one look at it and I knew we were going to get hit very hard, so the immediate decision was to jump in the car, pack up the bags, grab the dogs and we were out of there."

But getting out wasn't quite as easy as it sounds, he says I-10 was a parking lot, so he chose to go through Central Alabama into Georgia, to a hotel that not only had vacancies, but would allow pets.

Fortunately, in situations like this, a lot of hotels do work to accommodate hurricane evacuees and allow them to bring pets, and that's a good thing for people like Brad and the other evacuees here who have absolutely no idea how long it will be before they can return home, if they have a home to return to.